
Grab your thumbpick and learn how to break down—and build up—Chet-style arrangements.
Intermediate
Intermediate
- Increase the independence between your picking-hand thumb and fingers.
- Learn different strategies for harmonizing melodies.
- Create alternating-bass patterns that work over simple harmonies.
As inspiring as it is to hear Chet Atkins play some mind-bending fingerstyle licks, it can be quite daunting to decode what he’s doing. Where do all those sounds come from? How do we create our own tunes or arrangements in that style?
It’s useful to break a big job down into smaller parts, and “Chet-style guitar” certainly benefits from that approach. We’ll break this technique down to the smallest components; once we understand the elements, we’ll then be able to build up arrangements using this knowledge. Practicing this way helps beginners form good habits, and it also gives experienced players a chance to identify and fix bad habits that are often the result of ineffective practice.
Gaining independence between the picking-hand thumb and fingers is the foundation of all Chet-style playing, and we’ll be focusing on this foundational aspect most of all in this lesson. Because this style often involves moving shapes and bass lines, a few fretting-hand fingering suggestions are provided next to the noteheads in the standard notation clef. If you’re a tab reader, feel free to just glance at the standard staff for fingering suggestions if a passage is feeling clumsy or you feel the need for some guidance.
Here’s a tip: For authentic tone, place the back of your picking-hand palm just behind the bridge to mute the bass strings. This will serve you well as you begin to develop a strong groove with your thumb.
Although the alternating bass that’s characteristic of Chet’s playing owes much more to Merle Travis than Blind Blake, country-blues players would often drone one bass string below a melody played on the treble strings, as in Ex. 1. This “steady thumb” blues approach is a great way to learn how to keep rock-solid time with that digit. In his formative years, Chet heard a lot of different kinds of music, including pre-war blues. With the quarter-note bass, be sure to practice with a metronome to internalize a good sense of time, and ultimately, groove.
Ex. 1
After establishing the bass, add in melody notes. If a measure is challenging, even a single example can be broken down into smaller parts. Think of each measure in Ex. 1 as a separate exercise. It takes a lot of practice to reach your goals with the guitar, but effective practicing is the fastest and most direct route. Practice each example, or even each measure, until it comes naturally. Be sure to make a distinction between a slow performance tempo and a slow practice tempo. There is no such thing as practicing too slowly.
Of course, it doesn’t really sound like Chet until an alternating bass is introduced, so let’s move onto a more typical Chet-style phrase in Ex. 2. Start out by simply getting used to the bass pattern in measures one and two, and then add some melody notes to the open chord shapes. By keeping the fretting hand simple, we place all our attention on forming a good groove with the picking hand.
Ex. 2
Now that we have a foundation, it’s time to start syncopating the melody, as shown in Ex. 3. The combination of alternating bass and syncopation in the melody gives the example more of a Chet-approved feel. It’s here we begin to dig into the finer details of his playing.
Ex. 3
One such detail is learning to alternate between not just two, but three notes in the bass. Some of Chet’s arrangements contain sections that move between a two-note bass pattern and a three-note bass pattern (check out “Ain’t Misbehavin’” from his 1957 release, Hi-Fi in Focus.) The three-note pattern sounds fuller and relies on having an open string available that matches the chord tone, or an extra finger free in fretted shapes. In Ex. 4 we’ll keep it simple with open shapes in the key of A and familiarize ourselves with the pattern in measures one and two.
Practice alternating the 5–4–6–4 string pattern. That will form the foundation of the house. After adding in some melody notes in measures three and four, we’ll switch to the IV chord, but this time inverting it so that the F# is in the bass. This allows us to use a new string pattern: 6–4–5–4. Those two patterns will cover 99 percent of Chet’s thumbpicking tunes.
Ex. 4
Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins - Instrumental Medley
Mark Knopfler was one of Chet’s biggest fans and the duo released Neck and Neck in 1990 to critical acclaim. Here’s a performance from The Secret Policeman’s Ball in 1987 where the pair play “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Once the new alternating patterns are in place, add some syncopation (Ex. 5). In measure five, you’ll have to either stretch your fourth finger to reach the G# on the 1st string, or shift positions. Fingerstyle guitar is great for exercising the often-neglected fourth finger, but be careful not to overstretch or strain your fingers. If something is uncomfortable, stop and find a new position to play it in. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Ex. 5
Now that we’ve established a solid foundation for the thumb patterns and a good groove, it’s time to combine moving chord shapes up and down the neck with everything we’ve practiced so far. These new shapes facilitate another characteristic aspect of the Atkins style: open strings ringing against a fretted note on the adjacent string, as in Ex. 6. The example ends with a textbook Chet voicing of the A6 chord, which continues the theme of playing fretted notes against the open 1st string.
Ex. 6
When it comes to melodies, so much of the movement in fingerstyle guitar involves finding the best placement of the melody to fit comfortably within a given chord shape. Chet’s hands never moved more than necessary, and as gifted as he was, part of his genius was a masterful economy of motion. One effective way to move around the neck and accommodate a shifting melody is to slide your hand down to the target pitch. In measure one of Ex. 7, for instance, notice how I slide from C# down to A to shift positions. In the next measure, I use a bass line to move up into 10th position for the IV chord. Although the melodies and tunes vary, the approaches and techniques recur time and time again.
Ex. 7
In a 4/4 fingerpicking groove, very often either the 2nd or 4th beat (or sometimes both) will involve a bit of a strum. Chet’s thumbpick would drag onto the 3rd string so that the muted bass was heard in conjunction with the clarity of an open string or fretted note. Often this blended into the total picture he was painting, and on his classic recordings with drums and bass, this can almost be lost to the ears, but it is an important part of the finer details. Simply listening to a lot of old Chet Atkins recordings is the best way to internalize this sound and feel, but like anything, eventually it needs to become personalized via practice.
In Ex. 8 we move the sound from our ears into our hands. Try to place the strum exactly where indicated in the notation to get used to adding this detail into the mix. In the long run, you’ll find it becoming entirely natural and a bit arbitrary exactly where—or even if—you want to strum. The technique becomes more of a mindset than a literal move to perform the same way every time. Have fun with it and remember that Chet never played anything exactly the same way twice. This example concludes with a classic Chet-style single-note lick that features fretted pitches alternating with a recurring 3rd-string drone.
Ex. 8
As a great admirer of Johnny Smith and many other jazz guitarists, Chet was always expanding his vocabulary of chords and harmony. Learning chord inversions is essential to incorporating both harmony and melody in your arrangements. Early on, Chet’s inversions owed much more to Merle Travis than Lenny Breau, but he never stopped expanding.
In Ex. 9 we look at a classic Chet inversion of a D7 chord, placing the F# (3) on the 6th string, with the b7 on the 5th string at the 3rd fret. To make this shape, the left-hand thumb wraps around the neck to grab the low F#, leaving the remaining fingers free to fret the other pitches. An open 1st string sounds great against this shape and is a frequent melody note when Chet uses this inversion. Continuing onward with the left-hand thumb, the G/B on beat 3 of measure three creates a nice ascending bass line on the way to the IV chord (C). We then descend through the G/B again on the way to a D9 shape that places the A note in the bass on beat 1. This gives us a bass line that both ascends and descends. This isn’t merely effective hand positioning, but also musical voice leading and bass motion.
Ex. 9
With all the pieces of the puzzle now coming together, let’s combine every concept we’ve worked on in Ex. 10. Although it seems like a lot to keep track of, anyone can play anything if it is slow and isolated enough. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, remember that the big picture is composed of effective, tiny steps. Take as much time as you need to master each component—no one has ever been able to learn it all within a life and Chet never stopped learning either. Approaching the guitar one note at a time is the surest way forward.
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Discover the Best Rig Rundowns of 2023: Top 10 Must-See Gear Showcases
This year PG landed some elsuive white whales (TOOL, Pantera & Jack White), revisited some revamped setups (Jason Isbell, Foo Fighters & Kingfish), and got introduced to some unusual gear (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Plus, the hosts share their favorite moments from the last 52 episodes before dropping a few coins into the wishing well for 2025 Rundown guests.
12. Green Day Rig Rundown
The legendary punk band are in the middle of an enormous multi-anniversary tour, celebrating both Dookie and American Idiot. Check out how bassist Mike Dirnt and guitarist Jason White tuned their road rigs to cover decades of sounds.
11. Knocked Loose Rig Rundown
Ungodly, sinister, and maliciously menacing guitar tones erupt from the Kentucky hardcore band’s 7-string Ibanez models, providing the soundtrack to the summer’s biggest mosh pits and nastiest breakdowns.
10. Jason Isbell & Sadler Vaden Rig Rundown
With four Grammys, loads of gear, and millions of tour bus miles, Isbell is back for an updated Rig Rundown with his 400 Unit co-guitarist, Sadler Vaden.
9. Extreme's Nuno Bettencourt & Pat Badger Rig Rundown
Guitar legend Nuno Bettencourt crashes his own Rundown to showcase the “Bumblebee” guitar he cooked up to honor Eddie Van Halen, while bassist Pat Badger shares two killer stories about basses that once belonged to members of Van Halen and Aerosmith.
8. Slash's Blues Ball Band Rig Rundown
The rock ’n’ roll icon brings his blues-rockin’ Orgy of The Damned to the people headlining the S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Blues Festival tour.
7. Kingfish Rig Rundown
Kingfish doesn’t play a lot of gear, but with a signature Fender Tele Deluxe, a Chertoff Custom guitar, a pair of road-worthy amps, and a handful of effects, the Clarksdale, Mississippi, native is well on his way to becoming the blues’ newest 6-string ruler. He returns for his second Rundown with a Grammy under his belt, supporting his new Live in London album.
6. Jack White Rig Rundown
Get an up-close look at the tone wizard’s rig for his action-packed 2024 tour.
5. Jerry Cantrell Rig Rundown
The legendary Alice in Chains axeman gives us a look at his updated solo touring setup.
4. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Rig Rundown
Just like their records, the Australian rockers’ road gear is eclectic and adventurous, ready to cover ground from metal to microtonal Turkish psychedelia.
3. Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett Rig Rundown
The Foos’ guitarist and intrepid Shred With Shifty host opens the guitar garage for his current tour and details his brand-new pedal setup.
2. Pantera's Rex Brown & Zakk Wylde Rig Rundown
The original Cowboys from Hell bassist reclaims his spine-rattling position as the band's charging piston, while his guitar brother brings his fleet of Wylde Audio gear and a few tone sweeteners from Dimebag Darrell's private stash.
1. Tool's Justin Chancellor Rig Rundown
The bass lord morphs and mutates between rhythm and lead parts with a hearty Wal 4-string, Gallien-Krueger crushers, and a pedalboard that could make Adam Jones jealous.
OM-balance and comfort suited for the fingerstylist on a budget.
Comfortably, agreeably playable. Balanced dimensions. Nice fretwork.
Lighter mahogany top looks less classically mahogany-like. Some compressed sounds in heavy-strumming settings.
$299
Guild OM-320
guildguitars.com
The Premier Guitar crew is spoiled when it comes to hanging out with nice flattops. But while those too-brief encounters with acoustics we can’t afford teach us a lot about the flattop at its most refined, they also underscore a disconnect between the cost and the acoustic guitar’s status as a true folk instrument of the people.
Guild’s OM-320, from the company’s new 300 series, sells for $299, which isn’t much more than a good-quality, entry-level flattop cost in the 1980s. Strikingly, there’s a lot of competition in this price class. Even so, the OM-320’s nice build quality and pretty tone in fingerpicking applications stand out in a very crowded price segment.
The United Guild of Deal-Seeking Pickers
Though Guild, in all its incarnations, has always made accessible guitars a part of their offerings, a $300 instrument with the company’s logo might give pause to players familiar with guitars from their various U.S. factories. Quality can be hit-or-miss on any guitar from any brand at the entry level. What’s more, a lot of guitars with different brand names come from just a few OEM facilities—lending a certain sameness on top of irregular quality. But the recent acquisition of Guild by Yamaha, who has a reputation for solid entry-level instruments, inspires confidence as far as these concerns go.
So, too, does the integrity of the OM-320 at the nuts-and-bolts level. I couldn’t find any overt lapses in quality control. And in many spots where that really counts, like the fretwork, the execution is especially good. Little details like the Guild logo overlay (rather than a simple decal) add a soupçon of luxury. So do the Guild-branded, Grover Sta-Tite-style butterbean tuners, which look stylish and feel sensitive and accurate.
“The neck inhabits a comfortable zone between C and D shapes that’s super agreeable and, at least in my case, a nice antidote for hand fatigue.”
Though the body is built from layered mahogany on the back and sides and a solid mahogany top, the latter is much lighter and amber- or honey-toned than the rich cocoa-hued mahogany tops you’d associate with a vintage Guild M-20, or, for that matter, theM-120 from the company’s contemporary Westerly line. As a result, you see a little more contrast in the grain and a little dimpling in certain sections of the wood. The lighter wood isn’t unattractive, it just looks less trad, if you’re chasing Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter style. If that’s important, you should adjust the “design/build” score appropriately.
Sit and Stay Awhile
Barring being covered in porcupine spines, almost any OM or 000 will qualify as a pure-comfort title finalist. It’s not too thick, too wide, nor too petite—a size and profile that also pays unique, civilized sonic dividends. Here, the OM body is complimented by a neck that feels like an especially natural match. I don’t have a bunch of inexpensive OMs on hand to compare, and there isn’t anything wildly unique about the shape, but the neck profile feels very proportionate to the body. It also, depending on your own sense of such things, inhabits a comfortable zone between C and D shapes that’s super agreeable and, at least in my case, a nice antidote for hand fatigue. The neck is not classically OM-like in terms of nut width. The M-320’s nut measures 1 13/16", which is typical of a 000, rather than the 1 3/4" associated with OMs. The extra width, of course, would make the guitar more appealing to some fingerstylists that need the space. At no point, however, did I feel anything close to cramped; it’s just very comfortable.
The combination of layered back and sides, OM/000 dimensions, and mahogany mean the OM-320 feels and sounds less than super-widescreen in terms of tone spectrum and power. Nevertheless, it sounds balanced and pretty—particularly with a droning, dropped 6th string and other more-elastic tunings where the guitar can exercise the lower extremes of its voice. Tuning to standard has the effect of highlighting midrange emphasis, which can get boxy and render the 3rd and 4th strings a bit less potent and present. That said, it’s still balanced and almost never collapses into a distorted harmonic blur. The bottom end maintains an appealing growl and, as long as you use a gentler picking approach, you can use the highest four strings in very dynamic ways. Using a capo emphasizes other cool, high-mid-focused voices in the guitar that coexist well with most strumming approaches.
The Verdict
Inexpensive guitars that feel great can make up for a lot of shortcomings in tone. But the OM-320’s deficiencies in the latter regard are few, and some perceived limitations, like midrange emphasis, are intrinsic to guitars with OM dimensions. So, while forceful strumming is not the OM-320’s strength, the comfortable playability might just lead you to those places anyway. And if you compensate accordingly with touch dynamics, you can conjure many sweetly chiming tones that might sound extra sweet given the bargain price
Featuring vintage tremolos, modern slicer effects, and stereo auto-panners, the update includes clever Rate and Tempo controls for seamless syncing and morphing.
Today Kemper announces the immediate availability PROFILER OS 12.0 including the highly anticipated collection of advanced Tremolo and Slicer FX for the entire range of KEMPER PROFILER guitar amps.
The Collection features three vintage tremolos, two modern slicer effects, and two stereo auto-panners, that have been derived from the slicer effects. They all feature a clever Rate and Tempo control system, that allows for syncing the tremolo to the song tempo, retriggering the timing by simply hitting the TAP switch, and changing or morphing the tremolo rate to different note values,
The new Advanced Tremolo Modules in Detail
- The Tube Bias Tremolo is the familiar Tremolo in the Kemper Profilers. Formally named "Tremolo“ and available in the PROFILERs since day one, it is a reproduction of the famous Fender Amp tremolos from the 50‘s. Placed in front of the amp it beautifully interacts with the amp distortion.
- The Photocell Tremolo dates back to the 60‘s and features a steeper pulse slope, and its width varies with the intensity.
- The Harmonic Tremolo also dates back to the 60‘s and was introduced by Fender. The low and high frequencies alternate with the tremolo rate.
- The Pulse Slicer is a modern slizer or stutter effect that will continuously transition from the smoothest sine wave to the sharpest square wave, using the "Edge“ parameter. The "Skew“ parameter changes the timing of the high level versus the low level, sometimes also called pulse width or duty cycle.
- The Saw Slicer creates a ramp like a saw wave. The saw wave has a falling ramp when "Edge“ is at full position, and a rising edge at zero position. Towards the middle position a rising and falling ramp are forming a triangle wave. The „Skew“ parameter changes the slope of the rising and falling ramp from a linear trajectory to a more convex or concave shape.
- The Pulse Autopanner and the Saw Autopanner are derivates from their respective Slicers, they spread their signals in the stereo panorama. The "Stereo“-control parameter is included in many effects of the PROFILER. Here, it introduces a novel "super-stereo" effect that lets the Autopanner send the signal well outside the regular stereo image. This effect works best if you are well positioned in the correct stereo triangle of your speakers. When you move the “Stereo” soft knob beyond the +/-100% setting, the super-stereo effect comes into place, reaching its maximum impact at +/-200%.
- A single press on the TAP button at the beginning of the bar will bring the rhythmic modulation effects, such as Tremolo or Slicer, back into sync with the music without changing the tempo. The sync will happen smoothly and almost unnoticeable, which is a unique feature. Of course, tapping the tempo is possible as well.
- Modulation Rate - The “Rate” control available in many modulation effects is based on a special philosophy that allows continuous control over the speed of the modulation and continuous Morphing, even when linked to the current tempo via the To Tempo option. The fine Rate resolution shines when seamlessly morphing from, e.g., 1/8 notes to 1/16 notes or triplets without a glitch and without losing the timing of the music.
PG's demo master quickly (and easily) drops in an H-S-S setup into his 1994 40th Anniversary Stratocaster that needed help. Find out what happens when gets his first taste of active pickups.